Naivasha Level 4 hospital stuck in debt with over Sh300 million pending bills

Naivasha,

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

KNA by Erastus Gichohi

Nakuru County Health Committee has flagged a looming crisis at the Naivasha Level IV Hospital after it emerged that the facility has an accumulated debt of over Sh300 million in over two years.

Members of the health committee who made an impromptu visit to the facility were shocked to learn that various key medical departments are facing challenges of broken machines and lack of adequate health staff to attend to the growing patient numbers.

Key departments like the laboratory, pharmacy section, maternity wards lack vital infrastructure, equipment and medicines hampering service delivery to hundreds of patients who seek medical attention at the facility.

According to Dr. Bernard Warui, the hospital superintendent, the facility had accumulated a debt of over Sh300 million in two years with suppliers now threatening to cut provision of key medical services such as medicines, food, medical equipment which could derail service delivery to Kenyan.

Dr. Warui said the hospital now relies on the daily medical fee collections to attend to it's patients urging the County government of Nakuru to intervene and avert a looming health crisis.

At the laboratory section for instance, long queues are a norm as patients have to wait for hours to receive their specimen analysis results as there is only one qualified laboratory technologist to serve hundreds of patients even as key diagnosing equipment remain broken for months now.

The section also has gone for months without key reagents which has seen tens of patients referred to nearby private clinics to have their specimen analysis done with extra costs.

Dr. Warui told the Health committee that the hospital has not received medical supplies from the County government since November of last year and only relies on donor funded programs to run their pharmacy section.

“We received the last dispatch of medical supplies from the Nakuru county government last year November and the delays has really hampered our service delivery to Kenyans”, said Dr. Warui.

The Superintendent also raised concerns over delays to disburse over Sh20 million to enable the facility run its’ programs efficiently and attend to over 600 patients who visit the hospital daily.

In addition, Dr. Warui said the hospital spends to the tune of Sh30 million monthly to pay workers and run it's programs calling on the county boss to intervene and rescue the situation.

Though the county in partnership with Kenya Power Generating company (KenGen) build a modern hospital, the facility is yet to run optimally due to lack of medical equipment and linking infrastructures to enhance health service delivery to Kenyans.

The facility is currently facing an acute shortage of health workers at the maternity wing and infants section to attend smoothly to over 600 deliveries which the facility handles monthly.

According to Stanley Karanja, a member of the committee, there's need to address the dire situation to ensure hundreds of patients visiting the facility get adequate and efficient services.

Karanja raised concerns over continuous deaths of infants with over 20 deaths every month due to lack of adequate incubators and heating equipment to accommodate the growing number of pre-term babies after it emerged that 70 percent of babies delivered need incubation services.

The hospital was also put on the spotlight in recent months after a young woman died in the hospital delivery room with accusations of negligence a move that saw the hospital board dissolved.

Karanja said the committee will table it's findings to the County Assembly in earnest to enable the fast-tracking of disbursement of millions of shillings to salvage the situation and ensure resumption of smooth health service delivery at the facility that serves patients from four counties.

Courtesy K.N.A